![]() ![]() ![]() Pyramiden became communism’s show-room to the West. ![]() In between is Billefjorden, the northeastern appendix fjord to Isfjorden coming in west from the Greenland Sea. The panorama to the south is filled the with massive Nordenskiöld glacier and other mountain peaks. The town is located in a valley in between steep mountain backdrops. The beauty of the surrounding Arctic landscape in autumn colors makes impression. Many came from coal mining areas in Eastern Ukraine and Southwestern Siberia. Despite privileges like cultural palace and sport facilities, life up here, halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole could be hard mid-winter when there was no daylight at all and freezing cold wind. Most things, by-the-way, is the world’s northernmost in Pyramiden the ballet studio, theater, cinema, beer pub, hospital and so on.Īt the height in the late 1980s, more than 1,000 people lived in Pyramiden. Like the Palace of Culture and the swimming pool. Many of the monumental buildings here at 79 degrees north were erected in the late 1980s. Moscow’s Arctic dream was mirrored in Pyramiden. A year after the 27th Congress, in 1987, the General Secretary gave his famous Murmansk speech where he highlighted huge potentials in the Arctic. But he sure had ambitions to conquer the Arctic with extraction of natural resources, industry and shipping. Gorbachev never got a chance to visit Pyramiden. That was the first congress presided over by Mikhail Gorbachev as General Secretary of the Central Committee. A book with the transcripts from the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union lays on a desk. Hammer and Sickle ornaments and the Soviet star are used as decoration around the town. In a remote room inside the Palace of Culture are a few empty bottles of the cheap domestic Rossiya- and Priviet vodka. The smell of papirosa, likely the strongest cigarette ever made, stains on the indoor walls. Best of all, its not an artificial scenery aimed for some kind of movie-production. Walking Pyramiden today gives you a glimpes into the Soviet-style nostalgia, outdoor as well as indoor. With that, only Norwegian and Soviet communities remained on the archipelago. The same year, a Norwegian state-owned company bought Svea coalmine from the Swedes. The Soviet Union bought Pyramiden in 1927 from the Swedes, just like its state company Arktikugol (Arctic coal) bought Barentsburg coalmine further southwest in Isfjorden from the Dutch in 1934. In the 1920s, onshore, that meant coal mining. The 1920 Svalbard Treaty recognizes the sovereignty of Norway over the archipelago, but all signatories were given equal rights to engage in commercial activities on the islands. What could be taken out from beneath the permafrost inside the steep mountain was anyway just a tiny thousandth of the coal extracted in the Kuzbass region in southwestern Siberia.ĭigging for coal gave the Soviet Union a foothold on Svalbard. This is a Soviet ghost town on Norway’s Svalbard archipelago that once was inhabited by Russian and Ukrainian coal miners and their families.Īlthough not stated publicly, Kremlin’s main idea with the settlement was not primarily to get coal. High above the coal mines, the towering top of the mountain looks truly like a pyramid (See the photo gallery by the end of this article). The inspiration to the name of the town is easy to understand when looking up. Welcome to Pyramiden, or the Pyramid if translated to English. Its inside your own head the lyrics of Back in the U.S.S.R. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, investment, like the population, dwindled.No, there ain’t any hidden loudspeakers playing the Beatles. Everything was free for the workers, there was full employment and no hierarchy. The Russian Arctic Coal Trust has been mining there since 1932, and Barentsburg in its heyday “embodied the Soviet ideal,” according to Delafontaine. The town sits on Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago commercially open to other countries. He’s spent the last two years documenting the isolated town the world seems to have forgotten for Arktikugol. The photographer has long been interested in small places with unusual histories. There are more polar bears than people, and very little to do.Īll of which made it a place Léo Delafontaine wanted to visit. During the winter there is no sunlight and the temperature hovers around zero. It’s part of Norway but occupied by Russia and mined by Ukrainians. The once grand mining town sits on an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, midway between Scandinavia and the North Pole. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |